Abstract
Recruiting children and families for research studies can be challenging, and re-recruiting former participants for longitudinal research can be even more difficult, especially when a study was not prospectively designed to encompass continuous data collection. In this article, we explain how researchers can set up initial studies to potentially facilitate later waves of data collection; locate former study participants using newer, often digital, tools; schedule families using recruitment phone/email/mail scripts that highlight the many benefits to continued study participation; and confirm appointments with other digital tools. We draw from prior methodological and longitudinal pieces to provide suggestions to others wishing to re-recruit families for longitudinal studies. In addition, we draw upon our own experience conducting a non-prospective longitudinal study 6 years after an educational intervention, in which we successfully re-located 122 (90%) and interviewed 101 of 136 (83% of the located sample and 74% of the full original sample) parents and their early adolescent children. Although the majority of participants were recruited via original contact information (especially phone numbers), using a range of strategies to recruit (e.g., search engines focused on contact information, social media) and motivate participation (e.g., multifaceted phone/email/mail scheduling scripts, flexibility in location and means of participation) yielded a more desirable sample size at relatively low costs.
Highlights
Across developmental science subfields, researchers have called for more longitudinal research (e.g., Karmiloff-Smith, 1998; Meeus, 2016; Wartella et al, 2016)
Recruiting for cross-sectional studies with children is already quite demanding, requiring researchers to devise thoughtful sampling schemes, set up databases tracking contact with families, convince families to follow through and schedule study appointments, and confirm these appointments in a sensitive manner, all while working around families’ busy schedules (Striano, 2016). In addition to these challenges, re-recruiting for longitudinal work presents the added difficulty of working with a finite pool of families who might become fatigued from participating in multiple waves of research or who might have moved or changed contact information over time (Agrawal et al, 1978; Cotter et al, 2002; Barakat-Haddad et al, 2009)
We report on our own recent experiences re-recruiting urban families for a longitudinal study by outlining the protocol we followed to re-recruit families, which evolved over the course of data collection
Summary
Researchers have called for more longitudinal research (e.g., Karmiloff-Smith, 1998; Meeus, 2016; Wartella et al, 2016). Researchers with sufficient foresight in certain sub-domains may wish to gain consent from parents to contact their family members, friends, neighbors or other professionals in their lives (e.g., clergy; case workers) for help locating them (i.e., participating parents and children) at a later point, and to have parents prepare notes for these individuals consenting for them to provide current family contact information (Ribisl et al, 1996; Passetti et al, 2000; Cotter et al, 2002) These permissions could later be leveraged to assist with locating study participants for later waves of data collection. Some of the digital study appointment management tools described in the previous section can automatically send confirmation emails or text messages, and may allow parents to reschedule appointments without needing to interface with a researcher (Kalkhoff et al, 2014)
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